It took the oil supermajors quite a while to come to terms with the new oil price realities. The blow from the 2014 price crash was so severe and apparently unexpected that they needed two years to start changing their tack. Luckily, Big Oil had a good example to follow: shale boomers. True, a lot of independents active in the U.S. shale patch went under during the crisis. True, production costs are not exactly the same as Saudi Arabia’s, even for the lowest-cost producers in the shale patch. And true, these production costs are now rising for shale producers as oilfield service providers get back on their feet after two years of offering cut-my-own-throat discounts to the producers just to keep going. It’s difficult to find a reliable estimate for production costs in the shale patch. Some sources, such as the Wall Street Journal, peg the average at US$23 […]